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Book ^O'^Lf^ P( ~. 

fapvrightN" l^tD 



POEMS 



POEMS 



BY 

HANIEL LONG 




NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

1920 






COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 



DEC -4 1920 



S)CI.A601845 



TO 

WITTER BYNNER 



^T^HANKS are due to ''Poetry: A Magazine of 
J- Verse''; ''The Poetry Journal; "Gontem- 
porary Verse'' and " Harpers' Magazine" for per- 
mission to reprint some of these poems. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Through the Window Near his Bed 7 

The Poet 8 

Barakeesh 9 

Ascutney 10 

Presumption 11 

The Faun 12 

The Beetle 13 

The Clock U 

Shoes 15 

The Herd Boy 16 

Three Quakers 17 

To One Who Rebuked Him 18 

Ordeal By Fire 19 

Madness 20 

A Sea Maiden 21 

The Midnight Swim 22 

With Compliments 23 

Three Poems on the Death of Alexander 

I. The Dryad Welcomes Him 24 

II. He Says Good-bye to the World 25 

III. They Tell of His Death Afterwards 27 

To the Viscount of Beziers 29 

Song of Young Burbage 30 

Trees 31 

A Caliph Smitten with Surmise 32 

The Water Sprite 33 

On the Roadway to Matanzas 34 

The Cuban in the States 35 

I Gather Treasures of the Dark 36 

O Have You Listened to a Horn 37 

The Moon Beloved 38 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Moon Song 39 

Cain 40 

A Book of Economics 41 

There Was a City Where Serpents Writhed 42 

The Discoverer 44 

Gifts 45 

You Were Divulged from Forest Shade 46 

A Girl 47 

Confidences 48 

And Then I Saw a Maid 49 

The Masker 50 

The Day that Love Came Down to Me 51 

The Library 52 

Song 53 

Conspiracy 54 

The Cause of This I Know Not 55 

April, 1917 56 

Dead Men and the Moon 57 

Dead Men Tell No Tales 58 

His Death 59 

The Sand Dune 60 

The Centurion to the Dreamer 61 

Star-dust 62 

Against the Rising Moon 63 

For Richard 64 

For Oliver 65 

For Alan 66 

The Death Watch 67 

On the Road to Gannett Hill 68 

After 69 

The Brow of Dust 70 



THROUGH THE WINDOW NEAR HIS BED 

npHROUGH the window near his bed 

On his tousled head, 
All her magic on the sprite 
Poured the Lady of the night. 

Down a ladder came the lad 
With the moonlight mad; 
Down a ladder from his room 
To the garden's moonlit gloom. 

White with light was every limb — 

Moonlight maddened him — 
As he nakedly came down, 
Having taken off his gown. 

Trod he underneath the trees 

With a sprightly ease, 
While the moonlight on his face 
Lingered with a winged grace. 

Thus he came to know the smart 

In the trembling heart. 
When that cruel bee, the moon, 
Stings one in her midnight noon. 



Down a ladder came the lad 

With the moonlight mad ; 
Down a ladder from his bed, 
Sleeping with the moon instead. 



[7] 



THE POET 

T TAKE what never can be taken, 

Touch what cannot be; 
I wake what never could awaken, 
But for me. 

I go where only winds are going, 

Kiss what fades away; 
I know a thing too strange for knowing, 

I, the clay. 



[8] 



BARAKEESH 

"Y^OU tell me that the green god says 

That Barakeesh is fair; 
I answer that the strangest stars 

Are shining everywhere, 
That unaccustomed suns arise, 

And life is gay and sweet 
As the tinkle of the camel bells 

Along your phantom street. 

Friend of God, if I decline 

To taste the gift you give 
'Tis that I need no hash-a-eesh 

To coax me still to live. 
Plain every day is vice enough, 

With moons to quench my thirst; 
And I let the roses poppy me 

When worst has come to worst. 



[9] 



ASCUTNEY 

"Y^/'HAT is the mountain dreaming of 

Misty yonder — has he kept 
Green through the day the thought of her, 

Who last night softly crept 
Up from the valley to his breast, 

And there lay down and slept? 



[10] 



PRESUMPTION 

/~\ WHO are you, the goddess cried, 
^-^ To clamber to my heaven? 
Merely a youth who's come to be 
Your lord and lover, answered he, 
And stay with you till daylight 

And by what right, the goddess cried, 

Dare you presume to speak so? 
A thousand bitter nights, he said, 
Admit me to your snow-white bed. 
And darknesses support me. 

I could have built the Pyramids 
With half the wasted thinking 

I've spent on you and your mad ways. 

'Twas you that lost me in this maze 
Which now you'll lead me out of. 



[11] 



THE FAUN 

T BRING you the scent of the earth on my body, 

The smell of the leaves in my hair; 
I come with the wind and the water upon me, 
And never a care! 



[12] 



THE BEETLE 

T SAW a beetle on my knee 
As I lay basking by a tree, 
And this is what he said to me: 

Since you ask me of the Lotus, 
May this oak-tree not misquote us; 
I the Scarab am, of old 
Gold and green, and green and gold. 
Let the chariots speed away, 
Clamor lasts for but a day. 
While the peace the Scarab gives 
Murder and its god outlives. 
Egypt wore me on her breast, 
Pharaoh bore me as a crest. 
Brief was Pharaoh's scarlet way, 
I am green and gold to-day. 

Most delectably to me 

By the green and golden tree, 

Spoke the beetle on my knee. 



[13] 



THE CLOCK 

npHE Clock is in a garden wide, 
And there it keeps the hours, 
And even finds a way to hide 
Its face among the flowers. 

The clock is in a hive of bees, 
The clock is in a fountain — 

It's here, it's there, it's in the trees 
Yonder up a mountain. 

At times it's all that I can hear- 
No surer clock could be — 

For it is always somewhere near, 
And strikes eternity. 



[14] 



SHOES 

T CANNOT put the old shoes on, 
-^ They're too far gone to wear 
And yet I cannot quite assume 
My newly purchased pair. 

The difficulty is extreme. 

Since shoes are such a trial, 
I guess that I'd go happier 

Barefoot for awhile. 



[15] 



THE HERD-BOY 

n^HE night I brought the cows home 
-^ Blue mist was in the air, 
And in my heart was heaven, 
And on my lips a prayer. 

I raised my arms above me, 
I stretched them wide apart, 

And all the world was pressing 
In beauty on my heart. 

The lane led by a river 

Along an ancient wood, 
And ancient thoughts came softly. 

As with the leaves they should. 

I hung the cows with garlands, 
And proud they walked before; 

While mother-naked after 
A laurel branch I bore. 



[16] 



THREE QUAKERS 

T MET three Quakers on a hill, 

And thee'd and thou'd with them until 
I thought I was a Quaker, too, 
And Quakers all the birds that flew 

And Quakers all the trees that stood 

Like little angels being good, 

Whilst Quaker thoughts paced through my brain 

Like Quaker maidens down a lane. 

Alas, a solemn goat came by, 
And butted me, and closed his eye; 
And not a Quaker I could quote 
Would make him be a Quaker goat. 



[17] 



TO ONE WHO REBUKED HIM FOR 
WRITING A THOUSAND POEMS 

T>UT is it such a shameful thing 
^^ To see so many flowers in Spring? 



[18] 



ORDEAL BY FIRE 

A ND so she was condemned to pass the night 
"^ Above, beneath, beside, within a flame; 
And everywhere she looked the sky was bright, 
And everywhere she turned the burning came. 

Tongues licked her body, and a blaze 
Piled up as though her April skin were pitch; 

And yet she rose unharmed, and went her ways, 
And the grey monks intoned, She was no witch, 
She was no witch! 



[19] 



MADNESS 

nnHE night came softly to the sea; 
And they, the seven stars, to me. 

The sea, the seven stars, and I 
Gave an involuntary cry 



That echoed in the hills and went 
The ways of old bewilderment. 

And I alone the reason knew. 
And I had told it then to you; 

But stars are strange, the sea is deep 
And you were lovely, in your sleep. 



[20] 



A SEA MAIDEN 

ipACE-DOWN was I upon a sea, 

And not a planet swung in space 
Could mark a form that under me 
Rose to my embrace. 

What face I kissed, no moons disclose; 

My eager lips drank in the deep. 
And vast, mysterious limbs were those 

Which rippled me to sleep. 



[21] 



THE MIDNIGHT SWIM 

A LCHEMY snared me with a spell. 
-^^ Where heaven began, I could not tell, 
Where water ended I could not see; 
Both were above and under me. 
For I was floating late and far 
Where there was neither shore nor star. 
The depthless valleys far below, 
The ether's endless vertigo, 
I fled from both. With senses dim 
Like one in a primeval sleep, 
I silently began to swim 
Reptilian across the deep. 

Suddenly loomed from the vast haze 
A hill to meet my searching gaze. 
And finding I could safely stand 
I climbed, a man, to the dry land. 
Then the warm air pressed round me 
And in leafy fragrance drowned me. 
I felt my rigid thews relent 
In the more kindly element, 
And I distinguished, solid, sweet. 
The planet earth beneath my feet, 
Calm that I at last might be 
Vertical like bush and tree, 
Not horizontal, on a sea. 



[22] 



WITH COMPLIMENTS 

TX7E went along a forest road, 
Went naked in the night ; 
Our bodies in the moonlight showed 
Curious and bright. 

I don't think you'd enjoy it; 

Although you have the wit, 
I doubt if you'd employ it 

Or like the lark a bit. 

Yet there was nothing novel 
That night in what we did — 

We saw the old moon travel; 
Like him, we went unhid. 

Just after dawn we met a dame 
Who some day shall be dead, 

And when we bright triumphant came 
She covered up her head. 



[23] 



THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 

THREE POEMS 

I 

The Dryad Welcomes Him 

/CITIES which knew you shall know you no more: 
^^ Come, to new intimacies; 
Dream as the wisest of men dreamed before — 
Stay and be safe on this magical shore; 
Stay, and be lovely with trees. 

Elephants dance here, stately and slow, 
On the fourteenth night of the moon; 
Children and emperors ride to and fro 
With princesses swarthy and whiter than snow, 
And boys like the sun at its noon. 

Stay, and be young with the blossoms of May; 

Stay, and be violet-crowned; 
For youth's a libation the world throws away, 
But here you may offer it day after day 

To the gods of the sky and the ground. 



[24] 



II 

He Says Good-bye to the World 

The sound of subterranean violins 

Below the woodwind orchestra of leaves 

Has entered me; 

And lo, my song begins, 

And Alexander dances as he weaves. 

I sing the panic of young birth 

And the ravishment of earth; 

The bright dismay 

Of flowers naked in the day; 

The monstrous license and illusion 

Of profusion, 

The seed that struggles to creation 

Through the surging night, 

And the raids of emanation 

To the light. 

frenzy to escape the Many 

And be One; 

To be blind to the debauchery of shade 

And leap to the gold of the sun! 

For everything I see is a release 

From chaos to the peace 

Of an identity. 

proud rejection of what cannot be 

That gives the oak its majesty ! 

great integrity of heart 

That keeps each sapling faithful to his part 

Was Alexander thus, or did he violate 

With crimson the white dignity of fate? 

[25] 



Who knows? 

Silent is the rose, 

And Alexander dances here alone 

With flesh unstable and dissolving bone. 

I too, I, Alexander, 

Have felt the fingers of the sea, 

And trees have held me quietly. 

Leopards have marked the inside of my thigh 

With the play-bite; and from the farthest sky 

Eagles have come impassioned to my breast 

And longing for my life confessed. 

I sing the panic of young breath, 

And the strugggle back to death. 

'Tis strange, 

We so desire to be apart — 

And then we change. 

We desire to have done. 

To be gathered heart to heart. 

After the day of million-fold identity 

Follows the night when all identities are one. 

And I, 

Who face the sky 

The proudest scion of my race. 

No more would Alexander be. 

But lie in the intricate embrace 

Of flower after flower, 

Tree upon tree. 



[26] 



Ill 

They Tell of His Death Afterwards 

'T^O a land where goats are browsing 

And the crimson thistles are, 
Alexander came carousing, 
Came carousing in a car. 

Suddenly he ceased from laughter; 
By his side the charioteer 
In the silence that came after 
Sank upon his knees with fear. 

Alexander, king of kings, 
Thought he heard the beat of wings; 
Truths his tutor never taught him. 
Came about him and besought him. 

Alexander, king of kings, 
Cast away his helm and greaves; 
He could see within the leaves 
Dancing shapes and lovely things. 

There was fever in his breast. 
And he acquiesced — 
Left his car to rot and rust, 
Went away from death and dust. 

Went away from lust and lying, 
Went to meadows and to streams 
Where there's never need of dying — 
Went to be a prince of dreams: 

[27] 



Left the wrongness and the Tightness 
Of the things we dare — 
Took his beauty, took his brightness, 
Took his golden hair. 



[28] 



TO THE VISCOUNT OF BEZIERS 

1209 A.D. 

QIMON de Montfort seemed to win, 
^ Simon de Montfort lost. 
You played the game through thick and thin, 
And paid the uttermost cost 
That a lad should pay 
Who dared to say 
Thought is free, and life is gay, 
And birds are sweet in early May. 

The winds have taken your foeman now; 

Your name is snow and gold. 
Even in death you showed us how 
Dreamers could have and hold. 
And we try to say 
Your words to-day. 
Thought is free, and life is gay, 
And birds are sweet in early May. 



[29] 



SONG OF YOUNG BURBAGE 

'T^HE goat that rubbed my knees last night 

And left his ancient smell 
Maddened my heart that I was what 
A horned goat could tell. 

For if his favour singled me 
Out of the passing crowd, 
It's plain I'm not too well disguised, 
Nor yet too worldly proud. 

Most difficult it is to-day 

Beneath a coat and vest; 
I feared my old identity 

Might fade with all the rest. 

But I'll go back to hill and sky 

And hold a colloquy; 
I need those ancient presences 

Whose tumult still is — me. 



[30] 



TREES 

Q INCE I became a caliph I have known 
No councillors so prudent as the trees. 
When I walk forth I never go alone, 
And they are with me when I take my ease. 

We spend the night in revelry and song; 

By day we wag our beards and sit sedate. 
If rash intruder question us too long, 

We yawn, and plead the heaviness of state. 



[31] 



A CALIPH SMITTEN WITH SURMISE 

A Caliph smitten with surmise 
■^ Forbade a certain star to rise. 

Strange influence is in this star, 
He thought; it must remove afar. 

And yet at midnight just the same 
The star which was forbidden came. 

He dared not wander out at night 
"V^Tiile the red star was waning white; 

For when he did, his waking dreams 
Were mingled with amazing themes, 

And he heard whisper from the skies 
A star enamoured of his eyes 

Upon a terrace in his park 

He lay half-strangled in the dark. 

And secrets which it wished to tell 
Came from the earth whereon he fell. 

He sent for his astrologer 
About the portent sinister. 

Deliverance from this star he sought 
And from the fevers which it brought. 

The wise man said, O happy child. 
With this strange star be reconciled; 



Under the Prophet's Star who dwell 
May madness know and yet be well. 



[32] 



THE WATER-SPRITE 

T SEE her as I walk the shore, 

Luminous, opaque. 
She yearns for young men's limbs to wind. 

For young men's hearts to break; 
And she has weeds to wreathe their brows 

Under the clear lake. 

Some midnight when the moon is full 

And I can hear her moan, 
I shall walk slowly down to her, 

Under the lake, alone. 
Bearing a cluster of land-flowers 

And an agate stone. 



[33] 



ON THE ROADWAY TO MATANZAS 

f\^ the roadway to Matanzas 
^-^ I was busy building stanzas. 

Some were good and some were bad, 
But they one and all were mad. 

For I knew the gods walked lately 
Here where royal palms were stately, 

And their haunting gave me qualms 
In caesuras of those palms. 



[34] 



THE CUBAN IN THE STATES 

'T^HE North is beautiful, and I 
Would like it — but for me 
How bud the lips of woman by 
The soft Habana sea! 

And how can one who long has known 

The fragrance of this rose, 
Keep from his frozen lips a moan 

Against the northern snows? 

I shiver at the closing white — 

But on the sunburnt south 
I lie in an eternal night 

Of sighing mouth on mouth. 



[35] 



I GATHER TREASURES OF THE DARK 

T GATHER treasures of the dark 

-^ By walls of fireflies, 

And at the wood-edge listen stark 

To midnight minstrelsies, 
And there a youth I always meet 
Who passes me on winged feet. 

He flies too fast for me to see 

If he be lass or lad — 
If lad he be, he beckons me 

To fly too, and be mad; 
And if a lass, across the night 
She draws me to her far and bright. 

There's frenzy in the leaping limb 
When the wide world's asleep, 

When all the mountain tops are dim 
And all the valley's deep — 

But what it means, or why I go, 

Only the black magicians know. 



[36] 



HAVE YOU LISTENED TO A HORN 

f\ HAVE you listened to a horn 
^^ Sounding behind the night, 
And have you leapt from bed at morn 
To a fountain bright? 

And have you tried the flowers of June, 
And drunk the draught of brooks, 

And have you eaten of the moon 
In the forest nooks? 

And have you known the old romance 

Of following a star 
Which makes the very dead to dance 

After things afar? 



[37] 



THE MOON-BELOVED 

'T^HE poet lies by his silver sea 
And loved of many moons is he. 

The years go by, and Time assures 
Continuance of his quaint amours; 

For worlds may break and new ones be 
As the poet lies by his ancient sea, 

And many a star fall out of the sky 
And many a wise man learn to die. 

Whilst he, the moon's bright golden boy, 
Rests well contented with moon- joy. 

Loved of the moon and in her thrall, 
The boy has naught, and so has all. 



[38] 



MOON SONG 

TT^ISS me with flowers and flagons, 

Kiss me with clouds and your lips! 
Kiss me the kiss of the dragons 
In the foam of phantom ships; 

Give me a lotus as token, 
A poem, a flute, and a chime; 

Kiss me with bells that are broken 
In a dream that has conquered Time. 



[39] 



CAIN 

npHE afternoon was beautiful, 

White clouds were on the hill, 
Until I saw some little boys 
Entering a mill. 

And then, I saw but waiting shrouds 
Where the white clouds had been; 

I rubbed a blood stain off my hands, 
Only to rub it in. 



[40] 



A BOOK ON ECONOMICS 

T>ETWEEN long rows of figures lurk 
Pictures of little girls at work; 

And how poor women fade away 
Page after page the margins say. 



And in a note once in a while 
I see death freeze a baby's smile. 



[41] 



THERE WAS A CITY WHERE SERPENTS 
WRITHED 

'T^HERE was a city where serpents writhed 

In tiles along old yellow ledges; 
The swastikas curved ceaselessly 
To and fro on the palace edges; 
Rosettes of unknown copper flowers 
Plaited the stone where the totem lowers; 
And devil-masks and human faces 
Were carven in the interspaces. 

White temples there were wont to rise 

Pyramidal beneath the skies. 

The vanished priests and the kings ascended 

With hieratic pomp and choir 

To celebrate the cult of Fire. 

They mounted a thousand steps and one; 

They mounted, and knelt before the sun. 

And in that city, beside the palace, 
Underground rivers formed a pool. 
There at the call of primal malice 
Men threw maidens to a ghoul. 
Milk-white maidens, weeping, bound. 
They threw to rivers underground; 
And the lecherous rivers bore them away 
To lands beyond the reach of day. 

Where is that city? In a green tide 
The jungle beats the terrace wide, 



[42] 



Its streets beneath the tropic sun 
Whiten and age; its life is done. 



Priests still ascend, and maidens fall 
is there any hope at all? 



[43] 



THE DISCOVERER 

/^ HRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

^-^ Runs through the grass, — 
He hushes, he halts, 

At sight of a lass; 
And the moment unlooked for 

Has come to pass. 

He marks her as seemly, 
Approves her as right; 

She stands in the brook 
Like the falling of light, 

More golden than gold. 
Whiter than white. 



[44] 



GIFTS 

T MUST have many a golden moon 

With mermaids and the sea, 
And many a summer afternoon 
With peacocks calling me, 

And mottled pythons, too, to sleep 

Along an onyx stair, 
And gaze at me with vision deep, 

Sluggish, unaware. 

And that I may pursue the guile 

Of the remote and strange. 
Perhaps I'll need a crocodile, 

A panther, for a change. 

Caesar and Mephistopheles 

Must sit with me at board, 
My clown against the Devil's knees 

Jesting with Caesar's sword. 

But bring, when you have done with these, 

Still further gifts to me — 
A girl to love, a group of trees. 

An infant on my knee. 



[45] 



YOU WERE DIVULGED FROM 
FOREST SHADES 

ATOU were divulged from forest shade, 
-^ Who bore you but the vine? 
It was the fountains that betrayed, 
The stars that made you mine. 

You, who enamoured of the moon 

Linger to comfort me, 
Whose eyes are brighter than the moon. 

More agile than the sea. 

Approaching softly with the dawn. 
You sing your heart in words 

Which make too poor the mating song 
Of all the other birds. 



[46] 



A GIRL 

/^NE of life's pioneers 

^-^ To whom God gave deep eyes 

To see, and deep deep ears 

To hear, and little veins 

To penetrate, in the dark. 

The spell-bound earth, and the heavens, 

For news of all far beauty, 

For tidings remote and lovely. 

And creeping shadow-fears: 

She dances through ancient forests 

Winding her limbs in leaves 

Her locks with the green nightshade: 

She follows the spotted moth 

Where the red flower appears 

Under the beard of the live-oak; 

She poises slender and topaz 

At night by moonlight meres, 

Marking the crystal barge 

Of Paris, and piping the dirge 

Of his beauty on the black bier; 

She barkens to the low wind 

Which weeps in the wood-edges, 

Till the lancers of dawn ride up 

With outflung crimson spears. 

And then she comes distrait 
Into the open day. 
And wonders how to tell us 
Her tidings far away. 



[47] 



CONFIDENCES 

AID the sun to the boy: 
What I spake to thee to-day. 
Go and whisper to a maiden 
For thy joy. 



S 



A maple bent to him: 
Between thee and thy lass, 
All that passed between us 
Bring to pass. 

That I told to thee to-night, 
Said the moon, 
Speak thou softly 
To her soon. 

When he met his love, 
The sun was in his face. 
The moonlight and the leaves, 
In his embrace. 



[48] 



AND THEN I SAW A MAID 

'T^HERE is a madness out of wonder born, 

And out of madness comes a parching thirst; 
So I who wandered stricken and forlorn 
Was like a dreamer with his dream accursed. 
And still I dreamt, and thought my heart would 

burst 
With the great wonder of this world to share. 
And then I saw a maid, that she was fair. 

And wonder now is budding like the rose, 

And wonder now is waxing like the sea, 

And what may come no necromancer knows, 

For what has never been, at last shall be. 

Eternal lips have leaned to whisper me 

The song which makes a deathless world the way 

Of decking lovers for their golden day. 



[49] 



THE MASKER 

T FELL in love with you 

(Guessing that you were truth), 
For you were masked and strange, 
And you were Youth. 

And then when I was sure 

That love and youth were true, 

I took the mask away 
And you were You. 

But gazing on you still 

As hungry lovers do, 
I saw that you were more 

Than Youth, or You; 

You had a third Shape, too, 
Hidden for my surprise — 

I looked, and saw it masked 
Within your eyes. 



[50] 



THE DAY THAT LOVE CAME DOWN 
TO ME 

T\rHEN Love bethought her to come down to me, 
^^ Now must I dress me well, said she; 
Since he has only mortal wit, 
I must give up my native tongue; 
Since he has only mortal ears, 
I must give up the songs I've sung 
And take an earthly melody. 
Since he has only mortal eyes 
I must depart the stretched skies 
And wear a mortal veil. 
Leaving my home above me, 
I'll be a girl that he may love me. 
Lips I'll have that he may kiss, 
Limbs that he may see. 
For this let all my wonders pale 
And dwindle to mortality. 
Thus did my Love bethink her, 
When she came down to me. 

And yet my love could not disguise 
Upon that day her deathless eyes. 



[51] 



THE LIBRARY 

"pETALS of flowers filling my vases, 

Sealed in crystal state, 
Millions of beautiful broken faces 
In my volumes wait. 

Here are the blossoms of vanishing lovers 

Who once desired the sun: 
Here are their beds and their tapestried covers, 

Theirs, whose loves are done. 

Some kissed on laurel, and some on the roses, 

Some on the columbine; 
And I gather them here ere love-time closes 

Always to be mine. 



[52] 



SONG 

T>OPPIES paramour the girls; 
Lilies put the boys to bed; 
Death is nothing else than this 
After everything is said. 

They are safe and shall not fade, 
After everything is done, 

Past the solace of the shade 
Or the rescue of the sun. 



[53] 



THE CONSPIRACY 

li/fY mother gave me to the moons, 

And gave in turn the moons to me, 
One midnight when she sang her tunes 
To a baby on her knee. 

I saw a kingdom in the sky ; 

And as I watched it move and shine, 
I stretched my arms out with a cry, 

Knowing the moon was mine. 

Though I have seen the right turn wrong, 
And common things grow strange, 

I have watched the moons too long 
To be afraid of change. 



[54] 



THE CAUSE OF THIS I KNOW NOT 

^HE cause of this I know not, 
Whither they went nor why, 
But I still remember the laughter 

And the bright eyes flashing by, 
The day the girls were kissing 

The boys who had to die. 

I search in vain for the reason — 
What does a poet know? — 

Only that youth is lovely, 
Only that youth must go; 

And hearts are made to be broken 
And love is always woe. 



[55] 



APRIL, 1917 

'^pHOUGH life returns with April's breath 

And olden dreams are in her hair, 
I feel the undertones of death 
And there is blood upon the air. 



[56] 



DEAD MEN AND THE MOON 

Tj^ORTUNATE they that take advice 

Of dead men and the moon, 
For dead men's bones are loaded dice, 

The moon a bright doubloon; 
And gamblers poor can stake a price 

To make a Croesus swoon. 

If in the fury of the play 

The moon should disappear. 
Our dead men clink behind the day 

Until at dusk we peer 
To see them heave her through the grey 

And roll her glory near. 

Florin of Dreams! O many a night 

The dusty dice we shake; 
The while the horror sinks in flight 

And brighter grows the stake, — 
The future that shall be, despite 

What shadows undertake. 



[57] 



DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES 
T^HEY say that dead men tell no tales! 

Except of barges with red sails 
And sailors mad for nightingales; 

Except of jongleurs stretched at ease 
Beside old highways through the trees; 

Except of dying moons that break 
The hearts of lads who lie awake; 

Except of fortresses in shade 

And heroes crumbled and betrayed. 

But dead men tell no tales, they say! 

Except old tales that burn away 
The stifling tapestries of day; 

Old tales of life, of love and hate, 
Of time and space, and will and fate. 



[58] 



HIS DEATHS 

TTE bore the brunt of it so long 

-■- And carried it off with wine and song, 
The neighbours paused and raised an eye 
At hearing he had learned to die. 

'Twas on a Friday that he died, 
But Easter day his neighbours spied 
His usual figure on the streets, 
And one and all were white as sheets. 

I died, said he, on Good Friday, 
But someone rolled the stone away. 
And I come back to you alive 
To die tonight at half past five. 

Monday at Babylon I fall. 
And Tuesday on the Chinese wall, 
Wednesday I die on the Thracian plain. 
And Thursday evening at Compiegne. 

Saturday, Sunday, Monday too, 
I die and come to life anew; 
Neighbours like Thomas look and touch 
Amazed that I can live so much. 



159] 



SONG OF THE SAND DUNE 

/^OME, will you worship the moon with me? 
^-^ There are six of us now by the side of the sea; 
But seven's the number there ought to be 
When the City of Death is in motion. 

Here by the side of the sea is a space 
Where forms that are silent may gaze on her face; 
May move to the music, may gather the grace 
Of the City that comes from the ocean. 



[60] 



THE CENTURION TO THE DREAMER 

T ALSO had authority 

And soldiers did my will, 
So have compassion, Thou, on me 
And remedy my ill. 

The sun descends in smoke and flame, 

Disastrous is the field. 
And now I call upon Thy Name 

That we, the dead, be healed. 

My day is done; and to the full 

Yearn I for life in Thee, 
To Whom each dream is possible, 

While this alone to me. 



[61] 



STAR-DUST 

VITHERE past Time the roads go far 
^ ' Littered with dust of sun and star, 
With sundered string and arrow sped 
The angels of the Lord lie dead. 

There lads of the impassioned races 
Reflect the night skies in their faces; 
Boys' eyes, boys' thoughts and bodies bright 
Are changing to eternal light. 



[62] 



AGAINST THE RISING MOON 

npHE lake, the lad who stood alone 

That midnight by the shore, 
The full low-hanging orange moon — 
The memory of a boy I loved 
Who went away to war. 



[63] 



FOR RICHARD 

A TRUE believer in the strange, 
-^ Building a Bagdad everywhere, 
He so delighted in the change 

Which comes of breathing different air. 
That we whom he has left behind 

Past any sight, past any sound, 
Must wish that death for once were kind. 

And he could tell what he has found. 

The lad who lightly went to meet 

The adventure of the far away. 
Can he return by any street. 

Has he no single word to say, — 
And what of us, that we can fail 

To listen so intent and well 
Now when he has the strangest tale 

Ever a mortal boy can tell? 



[64] 



FOR OLIVER 

T) RIGHT summers fade, and all bright faces too. 
It seems but yesterday beside the lake 
You stretched your brown length in the sun to 
bake, 

Or drove against the waves in your canoe. 

That summer Shakespeare lived again in you. 
You cried with him at Harfleur, Henry's speech, 
"Once more, dear friends, once more into the 
breach!" 

Each day you w^ent as Shakespeare's heroes do. 

So when the bright world darkened with a war 
You, the adventurer of dreams, aroused 
As one who recognized his hour, and sped 

Into the danger's very heart and core. 
And now, farewell! They tell me you are housed 
Among the deathless, whom they call the dead. 



[65] 



FOR ALAN 

npHE shapes of waking moments wearied him, 
Heroic beauty stirred him as he slept; 

And so he lived his youth, and so he crept 
Back to old shadows beautiful and dim. 
But at the call to arms his eyes were grim; 

Dreams must be saved! So he, the dream adept, 

Seeing young Death afar where Horror swept, 
Leapt with a lover's trembling in each limb. 
He sought her out he knew to be his maiden 

And cried to her he flamed for as his bride. 

The thundering guns were viols for his suit, 
And iron shards his couch. The day was laden 

With scent of deadly blossoms, and he died — 

And now, wrapt with his maiden, he is mute. 



[66] 



THE DEATH WATCH 

'T^HE young moon early slipped away 

And left the stars to watch with me 
A shape that trailed his summer cloak 
By the quiet sea. 

And there beside the sunmier sea 
Under a vastness star-beguiled, 

Young Death heard all I had to say, 
Everything, and smiled. 

Though this was only yester-eve. 
He seemed Someone I used to know, 

Someone more close to me than life 
In the long ago. 



[67] 



ON THE ROAD TO GANNETT HILL 

r\^ the road to Gannett Hill 
^^ South of Robin's lumber mill, 
Whispers come from waiting trees 
Sudden murmurs on the breeze. 

For the passing of the hours 
Loses one in miles of flowers, 
And each winding of the lane 
Leads one back to trees again. 

There the forest edges call 
The most careful feet that fall, 
And the ears forever hark 
Invitations in the dark. 

Invitations to return 
To the breast of flower and fern, 
Just as though the sweet and wild 
Leaned to its forgetful child. 



[68] 



AFTER 

TF I had had to face my grief 

For those I love who now are dead, 
Remembering a Stoic belief 

Or what some ancient Cynic said, 

From day to day I could not go 
As one who goes from dark to light, 

Nor could I know what now I know 
Of Shapes that keep away from sight. 

It was our lingerings to say 
All sorts of things we could not tell. 

Which made them sure they still might stay 
Forever safe from a farewell. 



[69] 



THE BROW OF DUST 

T^HIS dust was lilies long ago, 

And precious living things; 
It knew the shapes of loveliness, 
It rose on beating wings. 

Daughters of heaven, sons of earth, 

Mix in it far and near, — 
What wonder poets find the earth 

A magic thing and dear. 

And braid their words from very earth, 
And fear not moth nor rust. 

And place new garlands one by one 
Upon the brow of dust. 



[70] 



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